


the way you keep the world at bay for me

by Dandybear



Category: Avatar (TV), Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Affection starved Korra, Between 404 and 405, Gen, Lin Beifong needs at least 20 hugs and an apology from the world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-28
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-02-22 23:51:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2526248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dandybear/pseuds/Dandybear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Korra ponders immortality, family, and how children fall asleep in the weirdest positions. Featuring the Airbabies as her Earthly Attachments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the way you keep the world at bay for me

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from The Dixie Chick's 'Easy Silence'. 
> 
> I realise that I mention bathroom usage in a lot of my fanfiction. It's my gritty realism, yo. And, anyone who has ever cuddled a kid will know how they always manage to hit your bladder. It's like magnetism.

Korra has a tiny knee pressed right against her bladder. She doesn’t want to get up. Partly because it will wake up the others.

 

She’s sleeping in a pile of Airbenders. Ikki has her face pressed to Korra’s neck and is wrapped around her like a ratpython (It’s her knee that’s giving Korra the potty emergency). Jinora is stretched out diagonally behind them. Her armpit is dangerously close to Korra’s face, and the kid has adult smell now. Meelo’s spread like a starfish against Korra’s legs.

 

She has missed this. Affection. Her family. Aang’s family. Spirits, they’ve gotten so big. She smiles and wonders if Ikki still wants her Master Tattoos to look like lightning bolts. It’d be pretty wicked if she got them like that. Korra wants to tell them that the ancient Airbenders had tattoos that look like Raava.

 

Pepper snores below them. Team Avatar used to sleep like this. Four kids and a Sky Bison under the stars. Well, what stars can be seen in the Earth Kingdom. Korra misses seeing the entire sky back in the South Pole.

 

She misses the light pollution of Republic City.

 

Ikki shifts and free’s Korra’s bladder. She sighs in relief and slithers out from the younger girl. With dry lips, she presses a kiss to Ikki’s eyebrow.

 

Korra vaults off Pepper’s back to find a bush to pee behind.

 

She hears Meelo’s disgruntled grumbling about being shifted. Korra’s climbing back up onto Pepper when she sees his fuzzy head peek over the saddle.

 

“Sorry Meelo. Nature called.”

 

“Avatar stuff?”

 

“Oh. No. I had to drain the main vein.”

 

“Ohhhh.”

 

He’s rubbing at an eye and squinting at her. Korra slides back into place beside Ikki and Meelo curls against her like a cat. Jinora shifts and her armpit is fully on Korra’s face. 

 

How long have they been wearing the same flight suits?

 

How do kids always find the least comfortable way to sleep with adults? She has memories of baby Meelo’s tiny sharp toenails scratching at her neck.

 

(Hey Raava? I don’t know if it’s up to you, but can we save this moment for the next Avatar? I don’t wanna forget how this feels. I love them so much.)

 

The skin on her chest briefly glows like a comet. She’s going to assume that’s an affirmative. She’s also not going to think too hard about how Raava just kinda worms around in their body.

 

“Go to sleep, Korra.” A grumpy Jinora says.

 

“Kay. Goodnight.”

 

She really hopes Toph cuddles with her kids at least once before she dies. Being starved of affection for six months killed her. Toph’s been hermit-ing it up for ten years. Lin needs at least twenty hugs from her mom.

 

“Sleep.”

  
Ikki’s hand covers Korra’s face.


End file.
